4 ms·

I wonder, will the rich start hiring elaborate casts of servants including butlers, footmen, lady's maids, and so on, since they'll be the only ones with the in

by kubb 8mo ago

I wonder, will the rich start hiring elaborate casts of servants including butlers, footmen, lady's maids, and so on, since they'll be the only ones with the income?

chung8123 8mo ago
Who do you think is building the machines for the rich? All of these tech companies are nothing without the employees that build the tech.
temp8830 8mo ago
They already do. In fact, we are all working in service of their power trips.
ted_bunny 8mo ago
This is what the service economy in the imperial core already is.
drzaiusx11 8mo ago
As far as I can tell, the rich have never stopped employing elaborate casts of servants; these servants just go by different titles now: private chef, personal assistant, nanny, fashion consultant, etc.
- kbelder 8mo ago
  The fact that it's a voluntary arrangement instead of forced makes a significant difference.
  - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
    Employing servants only recently fell out of favor in the years between WWI and WWII. Prior to WWI having servants was still in fashion for the wealthy. Naturally I meant paid servants. Enslaved and to some extent indentured servants obviously have little to no choice. That said many of those employered in service industries and to some extent the gig economy have limited options and their participation is barely "voluntary" in modern capitalism.
    - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
      Aside: seeing myself refer to the 1940s as "recent" is really highlighting my age. Soon I'll be relegated to a "grampa yelling at clouds" meme (but just the computer cloud variety)
  - int_19h 8mo ago
    Those particular roles were voluntary arrangement for much of human history, simply because people who fill them tend to be significantly better off than those who don't directly serve the powerful (and instead serve their economic interests, like e.g. agricultural slaves or serfs).
graemep 8mo ago
They already do and always have. They never stopped hiring butlers (who are pretty well paid BTW), chefs, chauffeurs, maids, gardeners, nannies..... The terminology may have changed a bit, but they still employ people to do stuff for them One big difference is while professional class affluent people will hire cleaners or gardeners or nannies for a certain number or hours they cannot (at least in rich countries) hire them as full time live in employees. There are some things that are increasing. For example employing full time tutors to teach their kids - as rich people used to often do (say a 100 years ago). So they get one to one attention while other people kids are in classes with many kids, and the poor have their kids in classes with a large number of kids. Interesting the government here in the UK is increasingly hostile to ordinary people educating their kids outside school which is the nearest we can get to what the rich do (again, hiring tutors by the hour, and self-supply within the household). They also hire people to manage their wealth. I do not know enough about the history to be sure, but this seems to be also to be a return to historical norms after an egalitarian anomaly. A lot of wealth is looked after by full time employees of "family offices" - and the impression I get from people in investment management and high end property is that this has increased a lot in the last few decades. Incidentally, one of the questions around Epstein is why so many rich people let him take over some of the work that you would expect their family offices to handle.
- ghaff 8mo ago
  A lot of it is probably more part-time but, yes, people who are some definition of rich spend more money on people to do more work for them (cleaning, landscaping, accounting, etc.) Doesn't mean they don't do any of those things--and outsourcing some can be more effort than it's worth--but they don't necessarily cut their own lawn or do car repairs.
  - graemep 8mo ago
    If you are rich "outsourcing" is easy because you have people to handle that for you. You have senior servants like butlers and housekeepers who manage the rest of the staff, for example, so you are not directly hiring cleaners. This is the difference between the affluent and the truly rich.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

by kubb 8mo ago

I wonder, will the rich start hiring elaborate casts of servants including butlers, footmen, lady's maids, and so on, since they'll be the only ones with the income?

chung8123 8mo ago

Who do you think is building the machines for the rich? All of these tech companies are nothing without the employees that build the tech.

temp8830 8mo ago

They already do. In fact, we are all working in service of their power trips.

ted_bunny 8mo ago

This is what the service economy in the imperial core already is.

drzaiusx11 8mo ago

As far as I can tell, the rich have never stopped employing elaborate casts of servants; these servants just go by different titles now: private chef, personal assistant, nanny, fashion consultant, etc.

kbelder 8mo ago
The fact that it's a voluntary arrangement instead of forced makes a significant difference.
- drzaiusx11 8mo ago
  Employing servants only recently fell out of favor in the years between WWI and WWII. Prior to WWI having servants was still in fashion for the wealthy. Naturally I meant paid servants. Enslaved and to some extent indentured servants obviously have little to no choice. That said many of those employered in service industries and to some extent the gig economy have limited options and their participation is barely "voluntary" in modern capitalism.
  - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
    Aside: seeing myself refer to the 1940s as "recent" is really highlighting my age. Soon I'll be relegated to a "grampa yelling at clouds" meme (but just the computer cloud variety)
- int_19h 8mo ago
  Those particular roles were voluntary arrangement for much of human history, simply because people who fill them tend to be significantly better off than those who don't directly serve the powerful (and instead serve their economic interests, like e.g. agricultural slaves or serfs).

graemep 8mo ago

They already do and always have. They never stopped hiring butlers (who are pretty well paid BTW), chefs, chauffeurs, maids, gardeners, nannies..... The terminology may have changed a bit, but they still employ people to do stuff for them One big difference is while professional class affluent people will hire cleaners or gardeners or nannies for a certain number or hours they cannot (at least in rich countries) hire them as full time live in employees. There are some things that are increasing. For example employing full time tutors to teach their kids - as rich people used to often do (say a 100 years ago). So they get one to one attention while other people kids are in classes with many kids, and the poor have their kids in classes with a large number of kids. Interesting the government here in the UK is increasingly hostile to ordinary people educating their kids outside school which is the nearest we can get to what the rich do (again, hiring tutors by the hour, and self-supply within the household). They also hire people to manage their wealth. I do not know enough about the history to be sure, but this seems to be also to be a return to historical norms after an egalitarian anomaly. A lot of wealth is looked after by full time employees of "family offices" - and the impression I get from people in investment management and high end property is that this has increased a lot in the last few decades. Incidentally, one of the questions around Epstein is why so many rich people let him take over some of the work that you would expect their family offices to handle.

ghaff 8mo ago
A lot of it is probably more part-time but, yes, people who are some definition of rich spend more money on people to do more work for them (cleaning, landscaping, accounting, etc.) Doesn't mean they don't do any of those things--and outsourcing some can be more effort than it's worth--but they don't necessarily cut their own lawn or do car repairs.
- graemep 8mo ago
  If you are rich "outsourcing" is easy because you have people to handle that for you. You have senior servants like butlers and housekeepers who manage the rest of the staff, for example, so you are not directly hiring cleaners. This is the difference between the affluent and the truly rich.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]